This is Bob
Bob and his friends are my new characters from my latest programming assignment entitled 'Reach For The Sky'. I have no idea where this title came from but due to the annoying way Visual Studio sets some things in stone, it's stuck. (I must remember this fact for future reference).
So since as this 2D platform game is set in the sky due to the title (cue little fluffy clouds), I may as well have fruit and 2nd Prize roller skating trophy up there too (that's perfectly logical... right???...)
As for Bob's mates, or rather his devilishly evil enemies, they consist or rather a stupid looking blue faced....er.... thing ! and of course the obligatory 1970's space hopper. The inspiration for these characters was not, as you might think, the latest Moroccan herb but actually from a tiny little notepad I bought from Paperchase. It had lots of strange looking doodles on it and I thought, they'll come in handy one day and the next thing...Ta Dahhh, they now have their own game world to play in.
We were told that as we had not started the game art module yet, that we could "borrow" sprite sheets from the interweb but having found a few a thought, sod this, I'll have a crack at the animations myself. So I scanned in my new kooky friends and then set about making them move in Photoshop(Version CS6 Beta no less) I used a couple of existing animated sprite sheets I'd found as a reference guide but managed to do it in the end. I'd wouldn't say they are quite Pixar standard but they serve a purpose. Quite happy with them.
When it comes to the coding, it has had it's ups and downs. I now only have a couple additional items to add but it's mainly debugging and commenting now (not a favourite pastime... ).
I've tried to use and demonstrate all the XNA features and coding constructs we've been shown in this module and think I have used 90% of them. To what quality though, I'll just have to wait and see.
I've used multiple classes including abstraction, overloads and inheritance (stop showing off...) Also, sprites, collision detection, alpha blending, animation, rotation (well nearly), projectiles, sound effects and game states... I think I may have crowbarred some of the these elements in, just to show that I know how to use them and this could have been at the expense of the overall game play. But I think at this relatively early stage of the course, it can be forgiven. I'll wait for the feedback on that one...
I think now looking back on the module that it may of helped, even if not a popular choice, that maybe a lesson on vector maths may have been useful. I know I'm a web programmer myself and I do work on finance systems but the concept of vectors and what to do to them to achieve a certain behaviour has kind of made my head bleed. We've only been dealing with 2d vectors too at this point and the thought of having to deal with 3d ones later is kind of putting me off doing it next year :-/
Perhaps I'm over reacting though, I kind of get the basics now, and maybe just practice practice practice should be the best approach...
Sooooo, assignment hand in next week, need to tidy up the technical design document too but not too worried about getting it done in time. Then I'm done for programming this year...
Next module - Game Art - Time to make pretty things......... :o)
